


MIA

by EnricoDandolo



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, KotFE spoilers, Politics, Prompt: Missing You, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:52:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5149277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnricoDandolo/pseuds/EnricoDandolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the disappearance of her master, Ashara seeks the Wrath's help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	MIA

**Author's Note:**

> Mildly inspired by a Short Fic Weekly prompt on the forums. Slow and kinda pointless. Enjoy.

“The Lord Wrath will see you now, my lord.”

Smoothing out her robes, Ashara rose to her feet. She had been made to wait for an hour, or near enough as to make no difference. A small number of other petitioners had come in the meantime – judging by their dress, mostly locals, farmers eking out a simple living keeping herds of barely-tamed tuk’ata in the cold and arid mountains of Korriban. As a padawan on Tython, Ashara had been interested in the structures of political power, and from their deferential behaviour she clearly recognised the semi-feudal relationship of patron and client that tied them to the noble Lord Wrath and his house.

All of them had been admitted shortly after their arrival, leaving Ashara to wait alone in the antechamber of the estate. The message was not lost on her.

The elderly Pureblood majordomo lead her through a series of winding, dimly-lit corridors, each lined with more exquisite collections of antiquities and invaluable artwork. Unlike her own master’s collection, the pieces were elegant, subtle, and refined. They might not have been as valuable, or as impressive, but they had the air of having been assembled carefully over many centuries. “The Lord Wrath is working in the gardens,” the majordomo explained after a while in nasal Basic, “he shall receive you there.”

“There aren’t a whole lot of plants that would grow on Korriban,” Ashara pointed out. “I wasn’t aware you could have gardens in this climate.” ‘Working in the gardens’, she understood, almost certainly had nothing to do with gardening. The Aquillas would have slaves for that.

The majordomo shot her a withering glare, which she effortlessly returned. Jedi training, hah. “The gardens of the Aquilla estates are some of the most celebrated _stone_ gardens in the Sith tradition. The pond bridge was designed by no less a figure than the great Ror’jhan Qo, if you must know.”

“Of course,” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. _That_ was not part of her Jedi training. “Do forgive my ignorance.”

Stiffening slightly, the majordomo stopped in his tracks and opened an old-fashioned sliding door she hadn’t noticed before, as it was made from the same faintly shimmering black stone as most of the walls. “You will find the Lord Wrath by the pond. Good day.” With these words, he disappeared, blending into the shadows.

Her eyes adjusting to the sudden daylight, Ashara stepped out into the gardens, or whatever counted for one among the ancient Sith families. Almost immediately, her montrals picked up on large slabs of rock seemingly randomly placed around the area. Only when she opened her mind to the flow of the Force around the garden, dark and heavy as it was, could she make out the reason within the madness. Each stone, each rock, each pebble was part of some sort of fractal mandala imbued with stories of ancient heroism and bloodthirst. As she followed the path that was barely visible in the red sand covering the ground, the mandala painted by the Force seemed to shift and change, depicting in quick succession justice, the relationships between the Sith castes, and the dark spirit of Korriban itself, that had driven its people to such lengths in their pursuit of power.

Following the weave of the Force, Ashara was eventually led to a small pond crossed by an utterly unremarkable-looking stone bridge that was indubitably an inestimable work of art to the right eye. The water was dark and murky. A light writing desk had been set up by the pond, two chairs in front of it. Behind it sat a young male Sith – or at least Ashara assumed he was young, she could never tell with his species – in boiled black leather, a pair of lightsabres at his belt. In a remarkable display of self-mutilation, the bony ridges on his face were inlaid with large gold piercings, at least two dozen of them, and the tendrils on his chin must certainly have been bent into shape to be this symmetrical.

He did not look at her when she approached, rather focusing his steely gaze on the datapad in his hand, though she knew he had sensed her.

Standing at some distance, Ashara gave a stiff bow. “My lord Wrath.”

The Empire’s Wrath took his time. When he finally turned to face her, there was no trace of pity in his eyes. “Before we begin,” he said, his voice carefully articulated, aristocratic and sharp, “I want to make one thing perfectly clear. This meeting is a courtesy, nothing more. I am only on Korriban for a few hours to take care of some family business, and I’ve got twenty divisions waiting for me in orbit around Quesh. The sole reason I am receiving you at all is your service to the Empire. So make your point, Apprentice Zavros, and make it quickly.”

Well, this was going well. The Wrath was not known for his affability, but in all of their past, brief interactions – during the Oriconian campaign, and in the run-up to the Battle of Yavin – he had been nothing but courteous toward her, unlike many Sith who could not see past the colour of her skin and the montrals on her head. Stiffly, Ashara settled into a parade rest, feeling rather like a wayward padawan being schooled by the masters. “My lord, it has been a month now since the attack on the Joint Task Force hunting Vitiate. So far, no imperial fleet has been dispatched to retaliate and extract my master and Darth Marr. I’ve been to talk to the remaining Dark Councillors … but none of them would receive me.”

The Wrath raised a ridged eyebrow. “You must not have been informed. Both Marr and Imperius are considered to have been slain by enemy action.”

“They are not dead!,” Ashara exclaimed, perhaps too forcefully. _Peace, passion …_ “They are not dead,” she repeated, more calmly. “I don’t know about Darth Marr, but I would have felt my master’s death in the Force, count on it.”

“Pardon me if I don’t take your word for it. The … _atypical_ nature of your relationship with your master is well-known, apprentice. I believe unnatural affection clouds your judgment in this matter.” Leaning forward, he put down the datapad in his hand. “Assuming the Allied fleet was attacked by our former emperor, it would have been annihilated entirely. Remember what he did to Ziost.”

Her throat tightened. “I know. I was there just after it happened.” Standing in the frozen ashes of the dead world, still rippling through the Force with the dying screams of billions, had not been an experience either her or her master would soon forget – or forgive. Vitiate had to be destroyed, utterly and without mercy, that was clearer now than ever before. It was why her master had gone aboard Darth Marr’s flagship, and it was part of why she wished she had gone with him.

“Then you know what he is capable of. Even if, by some miracle, Imperius still lives, he is now beyond our reach.”

“We must at least try to find him. And Marr, too. You must have seen the recordings from the _Fury’_ s cameras – Vitiate has a fleet now, if it was him. He’s going to use it, and he’s going to come for the Empire first. You are going to need all the Dark Councillors you can get to have any chance at all of surviving his onslaught.” Agitated, she moved forward, put her hand on his desk. The Wrath gave it a pointed look, but she ignored his pique. “The Dark Council you have is a shadow of its former self. Ravage, Acina, Aruk – can you imagine them fending off Vitiate? Vowrawn and Mortis have some fight left in them, true, but both of them could drop dead of old age any day now.”

The Wrath’s deep golden eyes narrowed. “You presume much. The Empire is strong, even without Marr and Imperius. If Vitiate ever comes for us, we shall defeat him or die trying.”

“You Sith are far too quick to accept death for my tastes.”

He scoffed. “You would not understand, _padawan_. Like your late master, you are barely Sith. Do not forget who our true enemies are, before you let their foolish creed of weakness and cowardice infest your mind again. Whether we triumph or fall, our tombs will be bedecked in marks of victory. It is as simple as that.”

“If there is anyone left alive to remember, you mean. My lord, I beg you, listen to me – my master is not dead. Even if you don’t believe me, at least send a fleet to look for him. Even a single ship would be enough. You owe him that much.”

Almost instantly, a change went over the Wrath’s face. “It is _he_ who ought to be grateful,” he growled forth from between sharpened teeth, outrage plain in his narrowed eyes. “He would be _nothing_ without my family. He’d have ended up as a mining slave to some decadent Hutt if we hadn’t taken him and his sister into our household. We clothed, fed and sheltered them. Blood of my ancestors, my sisters adored them – even taught them to read. I knew that nothing good could ever come of that, and still I did my duty by the Empire and sent them to Korriban when we discovered them to be Force-sensitive.” He scoffed. “It was always a bad idea to accept humans into the Sith Order. Slaves and aliens? Disgraceful. Imperius’ heresies and his sister’s failure to complete her trials are proof of that.”

“He was your _slave!_ You people treated him like property, like he was not a person …”

The Wrath raised his voice to match hers. Ashara felt her gaze slipping to the lightsabres at his belt. “And a slave he should have remained! There is a natural hierarchy to all things: slaves and masters, those who fight and those who serve. The Empire cannot function without discipline, without obedience! Our traditions made our society great, and your master would see it all destroyed. I would rather see the Jedi defile Korriban again than allow that to happen.”

“You say all that,” Ashara replied, baring her canines almost involuntarily, “but you still fought alongside my lord on Oricon. When my lord and Master Rhiatavi brought us together, we all swore an oath not to raise arms against one another until the Dread Masters were vanquished – and yet it was you who killed Master Qatras when all of us had turned against him on account of his sadism and pointless cruelties, wasn’t it? I still remember how you came out of your tent in all your armour and challenged him to a duel in front of the entire task force. My lord and Master Barsen’thor admonished you for it, but each and every one of us was glad you’d done the dirty work and we could return to fighting the Dread Masters. That’s what the Wrath does, isn’t it, my Lord Aquilla? You do the Empire’s dirty work. You make sure it keeps on running, even if that means you have to betray the principles you believe in. My lord, I can see you despise my master. I think he would rather be your friend than your enemy, but that’s your prerogative. But please, lord, I beg you to open your eyes and realise that the Empire needs him now more than ever. If you won’t get the Dark Council to send a fleet to look for him and Darth Marr, then at least have my master’s ship released to me that I might go and look for him myself.”

Rather than have her thrown out in anger as Ashara had expected, the Wrath gave her a long, hard look. His stare was rather more difficult to withstand than that of his majordomo, but she was acutely aware of what was at stake. With her master’s power base crumbled to dust, his fellow Dark Councillors blind and deaf to her entreaties, and the _Fury_ impounded on Dromund Kaas, the Empire’s Wrath was quite literally her last option. Barring, perhaps, the unthinkable – but knowing the Jedi, they would rather sit and meditate until it was too late than take timely action. And Darth Imperius had to be returned to the Empire, that much was clear to her

Had to be returned to her.

Finally, the Wrath seemed to have made a decision. “I will not commit imperial troops to a hopeless cause based on what is likely to be wishful thinking. As regards Imperius’ ship, it belongs to the imperial navy and will join the Dromund Kaas Defence Force as planned. That is my final decision. Good day.” With these words, he returned his attention to the datapad on his desk.

For an instant, Ashara’s hands were drawn to her lightsabres, wanted to cut the right answer out of the Wrath or die trying, but better knowledge cautioned her otherwise. She’d serve no one by dying here in a Korriban stone garden today, and there was clearly no way to change the Sith’s mind.

She left the estate guided more by the Force than by reason, her steps slow and irregular like she was caught in a dream. That was it, then. Defeated on all fronts, alone and without allies. Ashara knew that she was not yet ready to give up on her master, or to make her final goodbye over an empty coffin, but she did not know who else to turn to. Master Rhiatavi would be sympathetic, but these days there was little love lost between Ashara and her former Jedi brothers and sisters. Maybe she’d finally go visit her family like they’d planned so many years ago, use the time to meditate on the remaining paths open to her. Maybe she’d pay Andronikos to steal a ship and take it to the edge of Wild Space or die trying.

Maybe she’d pause when the majordomo, upon her turning to leave, handed her a note. It was written on what appeared to be paper, old-fashioned and as elegant as everything else at the estate. Written on it in deep red ink, in handwriting as narrow and spiky as it was neat, was the address of a public gallows in Kaas City, a date and a time. Questioningly, she looked up at the majordomo, who glared at her with undisguised hostility. “My lord Wrath commanded you be given this note,” he explained, “and that you are to make of it what you will. He further bids me recite to you the following quote from the great epos of King Adas, chant fifteen, verse twenty-nine: ‘fear him who sheds the blood of friends and heals the flesh of enemies, for he is Sith’ari.’ That is all. Good day.”

As Ashara began her long descent from the estate to where she had parked her speeder, contemplating the message, the shadow of a smile appeared on her face. Perhaps her dealings with the Jedi were not quite as over as she had thought.


End file.
